Recent Advances in Polymer-Based Scaffolds
A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Applications".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 3633
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Tissue engineering strategies provide means not only to produce biological substitutes for damaged/diseased tissues, but also to develop in vitro tissue models for physiology/pathology or drug discovery studies. Scaffolding, which provides a structural support for neotissue formation, is essential in developing such engineered tissues with a physiologically relevant scale unlike relatively small organoids generated from scaffold-less approaches. Cells, inoculated within 3D scaffolds, continuously interact with their physical/biochemical microenvironments during tissue formation. In this regard, it is becoming more evident that physicochemical functions of polymeric scaffolds, in addition to their traditional structural role, promote appropriate cellular behaviors, such as proliferation, migration, and/or differentiation/functional gain of the cells within the structure. For example, an electrically conductive polymer scaffold with aligned topographical features promotes the neuronal differentiation of neural stem cells, while compressive strains on mesenchymal stem cells in a mechanoresponsive scaffold encourage the formation of cartilaginous tissues. Thus, the development of multifunctional scaffolds that can control various physicochemical microenvironments of the cells is expected to facilitate the formation of tissues that resemble the functional characteristics as well as morphological features of the native tissues.
This Special Issue aims to include articles regarding the development and utilization of multifunctional polymeric scaffolds for efficient generation of engineered tissues in vivo or in vitro.
Dr. Jin Nam
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- Polymeric scaffold
- Tissue engineering
- Stem cell engineering
- Multifunctional
- Stimuli-responsive
- Cell behavior modifying
